Resource allocation and planning, including the generation of schedules for employees, is a complex problem for enterprises. Telephone call center resource allocation and scheduling is an example of a problem with a large number of variables. Variables include contact volume at a particular time of day, available staff, skills of various staff members, call type (e.g., new order call and customer service call), and number of call queues, where a call queue may be assigned a particular call type. A basic goal of call center scheduling is to minimize the cost of agents available to answer calls while maximizing service.
Traditionally, call center scheduling is performed by forecasting incoming contact volumes and estimating average talk times for each time period based on past history and other measures. These values are then correlated to produce a schedule. However, due to the number of variables that may affect the suitability of a schedule, many schedules need to be evaluated.
Recently, call centers have evolved into “contact centers” in which the agent's contact with the customer can be through many contact media. For example, a multi-contact call center may handle telephone, email, web callback, web chat, fax, and voice over internet protocol. Therefore, in addition to variation in the types of calls (e.g., service call, order call), modern contact centers have the complication of variation in contact media. The variation in contact media adds complexity to the agent scheduling process.
Additional complexity results when multiple sites are involved. That is, multiple geographically distributed call centers may be owned by a single organization, or calls may be distributed to multiple locations dependent on whether a contact is for technical support, sales, etc.